There was no shortage of models with cropped cuts—like Ruth Bell, Tamy Glauser, and Kris Gottschalk — on the spring 2016 runways, but 17-year-old Isabella Emmack managed to stand out from the pack. Isabella, a pioneer of the recent hair (or no-hair) trend, impulsively chopped her long locks. “I woke up one morning and was like, ‘Today is the day,’” she shares. With her friend in tow, Isabella went to a salon in Kansas City, Missouri, where she grew up, and “just snipped the ponytail right off.”

Unlike other models who might have their agent or a famed coiffeur directing changes to their strands, Isabella made her decision purely on her own accord. “My long hair didn’t fit my personality or my style,” she says. “Afterward I felt so much more free to be myself.”

In the year or so since leaving her tresses behind, the basketball-playing tomboy has gotten quite the career boost, from her big break walking in Alexander Wang’s fall 2015 show to traipsing down more than 30 runways for spring 2016, including Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Burberry, and Chanel. Isabella also graced Wang’s grungy, Steven Klein photographed fall campaign alongside models including Hanne Gaby Odiele and Binx Walton, and most recently was tapped as a face of Versus Versace.

When she’s not posing for the camera, this shy beauty enjoys listening to tunes with her two BFFs. “One of them sings, and I play the guitar, so we’ll go to the coffee shop and give a little concert every now and then,” she says, noting that she’d be pursuing a career in music if she weren’t modeling. Her fashion bucket list? “I would really like to shoot with Peter Lindbergh and be on a cover of Vogue.” The odds are in her favor.